When things go right in disasters: The moderating effect of specific knowledge on task performance

Since emergency management tasks are complex and knowledge intensive, task performance is dependent on the dynamic interplays among task characteristics, the type of knowledge involved and the ways in which such knowledge is effectively integrated. Based on literature reviews, extensive field observations and a survey of emergency managers involved in a large emergency operations center (EOC) in the southeast region of the US, the authors test a set of research hypotheses that depict the moderating role of knowledge specificity on the relationship between task complexity and task performance, and between knowledge integration and task performance. The authors conceptualize two dimensions of task complexity: components and interactive complexity. Two types of specific knowledge, discipline-specific and context-specific knowledge, are measured. The results indicate that the two task complexity dimensions negatively affect task performance, knowledge integration positively affects task performance, and these relationships are moderated by the type of specific knowledge that is used.